The Demon Awakens (19 page)

Tuntun, almost expecting the attack from this man who so hated her, was not caught by surprise. She backed through the first swishes, then ducked under the thrust, crossing sword and dagger in an
X
above her head to keep the pole harmlessly high. She expected then to find an opening for a counter but had to stay defensive as she realized the young man wasn’t yet through with his surprisingly adept routine.

Elbryan brought the pole right back in, before Tuntun’s crossed blades could shift it to either side. Then he sent it straight out a second time, cutting short the thrust as the elf predictably ducked. He brought the leading end of the pole up and back over his head, launching the pole into an immediate spin, catching it again in his left hand after it went once around, then stepping forward forcefully. Now firmly held in both bands, his staff made a second twirl, then came arching diagonally toward the ground, toward Tuntun.

The elf squealed and threw her sword out to the side, blade vertical, its tip nearly touching the ground. The staff smacked it with all the young man’s considerable weight and strength behind it, and Tuntun went flying backward, skipping and hopping, even flapping her gossamer wings, to absorb the tremendous shock.

Elbryan smiled grimly and came on, twirling and swinging, poking, stabbing, thrusting—anything to keep the elf moving backward and off her balance.

His success was partly gained by surprise. Soon the cunning elf had a new and more respectful measure of him, and her parries—and the distance she kept between herself and her opponent—became more appropriate.

And so they fought, evenly matched, for a long while, poles sometimes slapping together so rapidly that it occurred to Elbryan that, if they had some kindling, they might light a fire from friction alone! Each scored minor hits, each felt minor stings, but neither seemed to gain the advantage as the minutes continued to slip by.

Elbryan slashed across in front of him and felt his staff smacked once, twice, perhaps a half dozen times before he even completed the pass. One solid blow, indeed, he thought, but landing that hit would prove no easy task!

That point came clearer a split second later, as the last of Tuntun’s sword parries hit hard enough to force his staff out just wide enough for the elf to dart straight ahead and sting the fingers of Elbryan’s trailing hand with her dirk.

He needed something new, something Tuntun had not seen from him and could not expect. Something daring, even desperate, like the shadow dive Tallareyish had used to defeat him. Tuntun was growing more confident, he realized. She felt she had his measure.

She was ripe for the plucking.

A series of swipes, stabs, and forward strides put Elbryan in the desired position. He shifted back on his heels, reading the elf’s next attack perfectly and easily sliding too far away for the small sword to reach.

Then he came ahead in a rush, hands apart and holding firm, swiping the staff across left to right in front of him, up high so that Tuntun could not stop it and had to duck it.

She did, perfectly, but Elbryan kept his staff moving, letting go with his left hand and using his right merely to keep the staff’s turn intact and balanced. He caught the weapon mid-pole, again in his left hand, an overhand grasp as it came around his back and swiped it across in the same direction, this time with only the one hand and using his hip, the back half of the staff still behind it, for leverage.

Again Tuntun—though surprised the second swing had come the same way and not on the predictable backhand—managed to dodge, this time rolling around the tip of the pole, turning a complete spin back to her right.

But Elbryan wasn’t more than half done. As his staff came sweeping around to horizontal in front of him, he caught it in his right hand, quickly flipped his left hand under the weapon, then stepped ahead and to the left in swift pursuit and launched the third swipe, again left to right, by pulling his right hand in while thrusting his left out.

Tuntun’s only avenue of escape was straight down to the ground, and so she took it unceremoniously.

Elbryan did not check the flying momentum, continuing his own spin and letting the staff fly out to its full extension, catching it down low in both hands, as he might have held a club in his younger days when at play smacking rocks far into the air.

Around he went, all the way around, though he knew that it was dangerous to turn his back for even a split second on one as swift as Tuntun. He yelled out as he came back to face her, dropping to one knee, swiping low with all his strength.

The staff swished harmlessly through the air. Tuntun was gone!

The man’s mind whirled through the possibilities, all jumbled with the horror that he had erred, that he was about to get clobbered. He realized immediately that Tuntun could not have stepped left or right without his noticing and certainly couldn’t have gone low under the cut with him dropping to one knee.

That left only one possibility, an escape borne on translucent wings.

As his swing crossed before him, Elbryan turned his left shoulder down and fell into a roll that left him on his back in the grass. He pulled with all his great strength, tearing out the staff’s momentum, halting its flow and turning it perpendicular to the ground.

Down came Tuntun, her wing-fluttering hop exhausted, her sword pointed below her, leading. She had meant to pounce right upon stupid Elbryan’s back, driving her wooden practice sword into the back of his neck. How her blue eyes widened when she saw the pole’s tip come up to meet her descent!

She batted futilely with her sword, then, that failing, tried to stab down at Elbryan. Her breath came out in a rush as she plopped down hard, the staff’s butt end secure against the ground, its tip stabbing hard into her chest between her lowest ribs.

She held there for a long moment, up high on the eight-foot pole, her sword nowhere near supine Elbryan. She dropped the sword—unintentionally, Elbryan knew, for it fell harmlessly to the side—so the young man graciously pulled the pole out straight so Tuntun wouldn’t fall off balance to either side. She landed on her feet, skittered back away from the weapon, but soon fell, gasping desperately for breath.

Elbryan, his weapon dropped, was at her side in a moment. He thought himself foolish as he neared the unpredictable Tuntun, expecting that she would find the strength to drive her dirk into his face, thus claiming a draw.

But Tuntun had no such strength. She couldn’t even talk, and her dirk, like her sword before it, slipped uselessly from her weakened hand. Elbryan knelt beside her, his arm about her shoulders, comforting her.

“Tuntun,” he repeated over and over, for he feared she was hurt, that she might die out here in the practice glade with no one near her except this man she so despised.

But finally she was breathing somewhat steadily again. She looked up at Elbryan, sincere admiration in her eyes. “Fairly won,” she congratulated. “I thought . . . you had over . . . stepped . . . your ability, but your recovery . . . was truly remarkable.”

Tuntun nodded and rose unsteadily, then walked from the glade, leaving Elbryan kneeling in the grass.

He hardly knew how to react. After so many long months, he had scored his first win.

The row of trees, short and wide apples, ran almost perfectly straight, then jumped back a dozen feet, up a ridge twice an elf’s height, and continued on straight again from there. The upheaval was recent, that much was perfectly clear, for the soil on the torn side of the ridge was loose and deep brown, pocked here and there by a root, but with no fresh, aboveground growth. Something had reached into the middle of this line of apple trees and simply pulled back a third of the row.

“This is one of Brother Allarbarnet’s groves,” remarked Tallareyish. The other two nodded their agreement, for Allarbarnet, a wandering monk of St. Precious Abbey of Palmaris, was not unknown to them or to any reasoning creature of Corona. He had wandered the lands—the Wilderlands and not the civilized regions of his birth—more than a century before, planting lines of apple seeds in hope that his fruit would encourage the people of the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear to explore the wider world. Brother Allarbarnet—the canonization process for the man had already begun, and the abbots expected that he would be sainted within the decade—had not lived to see his dream realized; indeed, it had not yet been realized, but many of his groves had grown and flourished. Unknown to the humans, Brother Allarbarnet had been named an elf-friend, and had often been aided by the elves or by the rangers the elves had trained. So these three knew of the man and his work, knew of his groves, and knew that they were always planted in straight lines.

What, then, had so altered this one?

There could be only one answer, for no living creature, not even one of the great dragons of the north, could so tear this amount of ground in such an even, tidy manner.

“Earthquake,” Juraviel muttered, but even given his grim demeanor, his melodic voice could sound only a bit ominous.

“From that direction,” Tallareyish agreed, pointing to the north in the direction, they all knew, of the wastelands of old, a torn and battered mountainous region known as the Barbacan.

“Not so unusual an event,” Viellain reminded the pair. “Quakes happen in all times.”

Juraviel understood his fellow’s reasoning and knew the elf was speaking those words for his sake mostly. For Juraviel’s anxiety was clearly etched on his fine features—how could it have been otherwise when he had been speaking to his protégé Elbryan about this very subject not a week’s time past?

Viellain was right, Juraviel knew logically. Earthquakes and thunderstorms, swirling tornadoes, even exploding volcanoes, were more often than not natural events. Perhaps it was coincidence.

Perhaps, but Juraviel knew, too, that such events might accompany a larger and darker phenomenon, that earthquakes that could tear the earth as here, that goblin raids upon villages, like the one that had orphaned Elbryan not five years before, might signal something evil indeed.

He looked to the north again, peering hard just above the horizon. If the day had been clearer, his keen eyes might have spotted something, some flicker, some confirmation. For now, the elf could only worry.

Had the dactyl awakened?

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CHAPTER 17

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Black Wings

They took it slowly, very slowly, with eager Connor coming to understand Jilly’s needs and hesitation. He sensed the way she tensed every time he moved near her, every time his face was within a few inches of hers, his lips and hers seeming to pull together as if magnetic.

But Jill inevitably turned away, her face flushed with frustration as deep as that which Connor felt. On those first few occasions, Connor took the rejection personally, as a slight, despite Jill’s proclamations otherwise. He couldn’t help but feel that she did not find him attractive, that he somehow revolted her. No novice in the ways of love, the nephew of Palmaris’ baron was surprised and pained but also intrigued. Jilly was a challenge he had not before faced and one he was determined to overcome.

Gradually, as he came to see the light in Jill’s eyes every time he entered the Way—a more and more common occurrence—the proud young man began to understand and accept that her problem was within the mysteries of her past and not with him. That realization didn’t lessen the challenge, though, and Connor found he wanted Jill more desperately than he had ever wanted any woman. To Connor Bildeborough, Jill became perhaps the ultimate challenge of his young life. So he would be patient, would spend his nights walking with Jill and talking. His other needs could be taken care of in the many brothels that openly offered their wares in the city, but of course he didn’t need to tell Jill, his Jilly, about that.

For Jill’s part, her night always got better when Connor entered the Way. She found herself thinking about him constantly, even dreaming about him. She took him to her private place, the roof down the alley, and together they sat for hours watching the stars, talking comfortably. It was up there that she finally allowed Connor to kiss her—actually kissing him back—though she kept it brief and pulled away as soon as those dark wings of some past event she did not understand began to flap up around her. In kissing him—in kissing anyone, she supposed—Jill was sent back to a moment of pain, an event in her past too painful for her to remember.

But she suffered that pain, and let Connor kiss her, every once in a while.

It was up on that rooftop, under a sky that was streaked by clouds and stars, that Connor first mentioned the prospect of marriage.

Jill found it hard to breathe. She couldn’t look at the man but kept her eyes locked on the stars, as if seeking refuge high above. Did she love Connor? Did she know what love was?

She knew it made her happy to be with Connor but also that it terrified her. She couldn’t deny the longings, how parts of her body seemed to grow very warm, how she felt as if she were on the verge of trembling whenever she looked upon him. But neither could Jill deny the fear of getting too close—to Connor or to any man. The sweetness was there, but somehow just out of Jill’s reach.

Her first instinct told her to refuse the proposal. How good a wife might she be, after all, when she wasn’t even sure who she really was? And how long would Connor remain with her when even a kiss was a strained thing, something she had to force past this great black block that she did not understand?

But what of Pettibwa and Graevis? Jill had to consider. What of her duty to the couple who had taken her in and given her a home? How much better their lives would be to know that she was well wed! Perhaps her ascension into local nobility would even raise their own station in life, and Jill would treasure that above all else.

Jill finally found the nerve to look back at Connor, to stare into those marvelous brown eyes, sparkling more now in this starry light than she had ever seen.

“You know that I love you,” he said to her, “only you. All these weeks, nay months, I’ve sat beside you, wanting to make love to you, wanting to wake beside you. Ah, my Jilly, do say you love me. If you do not, then I shall walk into the Masur Delaval and let the cold waters take me, for never again will this body know warmth.”

The words sounded so beautiful to the young woman, except for his reference to her as “Jilly,” which she really didn’t like much, which made her feel like a little girl. She believed him with all her heart, and she had come to love him, so she thought. What else could it be called, after all, considering that her smile came so easily whenever he was in sight?

“Will you wed with me?” he asked softly, so softly that Jill really didn’t hear the words but felt them as if they were transferred to her by his gentle touch as he ran the tip of his finger from the side of her nose and down her cheek.

She nodded and he kissed her, and she let him hold her close, their lips together for a long while, and all that time, while Connor was making soft, satisfied noises, Jill was beating back black wings, was furiously fighting to divorce her mind from the current situation, was remembering beer orders from her work in the Way, was thinking of the man she had seen get run down by a rushing cart the week before—anything so that the moment would not send her careening back across the lost years to something, some horrible event, that she could not face.

The reaction of Pettibwa and Graevis to the news of the marriage was not hard to predict. The bartender nodded, smiling, and gave his precious Cat—he still called her that—a generous and warm hug. Pettibwa was distinctly more animated, hopping up and down, breasts and belly bouncing wildly, and clapping her hands together, her cheeks fast streaking with an outburst of tears. All that Graevis and Pettibwa had ever wanted for the girl was for her to be happy: as unselfish a love as anyone could ever know. And now that seemed so certain. To wed nobility! Jill would never want for anything, so they believed. She would dress in the finest gowns and attend the highest social events in Palmaris, even in Ursal!

Their reaction confirmed to Jill that she had made the right choice. Whatever her personal problems, the sight of Graevis and Pettibwa so animated and so sincerely happy warmed her heart. With all that they had done for her, how could she have ever chosen otherwise?

The wedding was planned—by Connor’s family, of course, since they had the wealth to do it right—for late summer, and with all of the preparations ahead of them, Connor and Jill actually saw less of each other over the next few months than before the proposal.

“Finished already?” Grady called as he descended the wide, sweeping staircase of House Battlebrow, the most renowned brothel in all of Palmaris.

Connor, sitting back on one of the plush chairs in the lobby, turned an absent gaze his companion’s way.

“What, only one this night?” Grady chided. “To be sure then, there are at least two disappointed ladies in the house!”

“Enough, Grady,” Connor replied, his commanding tone leaving little doubt as to which was the dominant one in this relationship. Grady’s standing was nowhere near Connor’s, and the only reason the baron’s nephew suffered the almost constant companionship of the upstart commoner was for the sake of his adopted sister.

Grady knew too much about Connor’s nighttime pursuits for the nobleman to discard him, and though Grady had never even hinted at blackmail, Connor understood him well enough to fear him.

“What is wrong, my friend?” Grady asked, tying his belt and sliding into the chair beside Connor. “Your cheer has been left behind, I fear. Might the bonds of approaching matrimony be tightening?”

“Hardly,” Connor replied. “Would that the day were the morrow! How long I have waited!”

Grady spent a long moment digesting those words, trying to find any hidden meanings.

“And do not doubt my love for your sister,” Connor went on. “She is surely the most beautiful, the most tantalizing and teasing . . .” He let it go with a profound sigh.

Grady put his hands in front of his mouth to hide his grin. “So it seems that she is driving you mad,” he offered. “Her charms have put you into the arms of three women a night for, lo, these five months!”

Connor glared at him, hardly appreciating the sarcasm. “And if you tell her a single word of it, I shall stick my sword into your belly and wriggle it about,” he warned, and there was little doubt he meant every grim word.

But Grady understood he had the upper hand and he would not back away. “You do so like sticking and wriggling,” he teased.

“As any true man must!” Connor insisted. “Am I to let Jilly drive me to madness? But that does not mean I love her any less. Understand that. So fine a wife.”

“Have you bedded her?”

Connor’s expression forced Grady to lean the other way, fearing the man would slap him. “An honest question,” Grady protested, “and not one aimed in protection of my sister’s honor. Know that I would bed her myself, except for the consequences I would face from my parents.”

“And from me.” Connor’s words sounded as a low growl.

“No longer do I desire such a thing, of course,” Grady wisely conceded. Even hinting that he still had amorous desires for Jill to Connor would be akin to reaching under a crowning eagle to pull away its meal. “She is for you, and only you. A swooning girl, if ever I saw one. No man but Connor Bildeborough could bed her now, but by force.

“And what of Connor Bildeborough?” Grady bravely pressed. “Has Jill surrendered?”

“No,” the frustrated nobleman admitted. “But the time is near.”

“End of midsummer, I should say,” Grady agreed, “or will you wait that long?”

“I give her until the wedding night,” Connor replied. “She is fearful—virgins always are—but of course, my rights on that night are absolute. She will offer it, or I shall take it!”

Grady wisely bit back a remark questioning the virginity of his adopted sister. It really didn’t matter; all that mattered was what Connor believed.

And indeed Connor believed! Grady could see that in his every fidget, in his almost animal like intensity. Why, even the practiced whores of House Battlebrow were losing their charms for him!

“Dear Jilly,” Grady mumbled under his breath as Connor rose furiously from the chair and stormed across to the exit. “You teasing little wench. Putting your maidenhead on a barbed hook and jiggling it before the baron’s nephew.” Grady silently applauded his conniving little sister, though his perception of her actions almost scared him; he had never thought her capable of such a beautifully treacherous play. “Ah, good enough for both of them, I say,” Grady remarked more loudly, addressing a pair of ladies sitting on the bottom step of the wide stairway as he walked past in pursuit of Connor. The women cocked their heads curiously. “I’ll be rid of you, dear sister,” he went on, speaking to himself once more, “and let Connor Bildeborough learn in his own time that you were not worth the waiting!”

Another prostitute entered from the street just before Grady went out. He cupped her chin in his hand, drawing a smile from her. “The little teasing wench,” he said, moving near the woman, who was one of his favorites. “Poor Connor will learn soon enough that she hasn’t your charms nor your talents.”

He kissed her, then rushed out behind Connor. The night was young but getting on, and Connor would soon enough have to get to the Way to meet Jill. But perhaps he’d have time for a few drinks and a dice game before.

It was a ceremony that had all of Palmaris talking; the women swooning, the men standing tall, feigning importance, wishing they were in the carriage in Connor Bildeborough’s place as it made its winding way through the streets. Any reservations that the nobleman’s family had held toward the peasant orphan girl had been washed away when they met Jill, truly beautiful both inside and out. Now, seeing her adorned in a white gown of satin and lace, her long, thick blond mane pinned up on one side and hanging loose on the other, she seemed made for royalty. There were even whispers that the young woman was indeed of royal blood, and a host of rumors as to her past made their way through the crowds.

It was all nonsense, all pretension, but in Honce-the-Bear in God’s Year 821, that was the way things were done.

For Jill, her face was a mask of paint and false smiles. She looked a princess but felt like a little lost girl. On the one hand, she couldn’t deny the pleasure of dressing so beautifully, of knowing she was the center of attention. On the other hand, being the center of attention truly terrified her. It was bad enough that the carriage would roll through every part of the large city, bad enough that more than five hundred people would be in attendance at the church when she and Connor were wed, but the thought of what would come later, after the grand ball . . .

“I have waited long enough,” Connor had said to her that morning, following the words with a kiss on the cheek. “Tonight.”

And then he had left Jill with the thought. She hadn’t even been able to kiss him yet without those black wings of that awful past flapping up around her, but she knew what he expected—one of his house servants had described it to her in great detail.

She had smiled at Connor before he left, trying to be comforting. She dreaded the night to come.

The ceremony went off perfectly—solemn yet joyous, ladies crying, men standing tall and handsome. After the carriage ride, the newlyweds came to a hall filled with music and drink, with ladies and gentlemen spinning about, twirling and laughing. It was loud and rushing, exhilarating. Jill rarely drank more than a single glass of wine, but this night, Connor kept foisting glasses upon her, and she kept taking them. He was trying to loosen up her inhibitions, and she was, too.

Or maybe she was just trying to blur the terror.

She found herself in the arms of dozens of men whom she did not know, gentlemen all, by blood if not by deed. More than one whispered something lewd in her ear, more than one tried to get a hand somewhere it should not be. Even a bit drunk, Jill was agile, and she got through the dancing with her purity intact.

The ball ended far too soon, at Connor’s insistence, which brought more than a few randy comments.

Jill suffered them as she had suffered everything else, quietly and privately, looking at Graevis and Pettibwa as they stood beside the Bildeboroughs. This was for them, Jill constantly reminded herself, and in truth, she had never seen them, particularly Pettibwa, looking so happy.